UK: The allotment firms helping to trim long waiting lists
A Freedom of Information request last autumn revealed that the average UK waiting time for an allotment was two years and eight months.
By Katherine Latham
BBC
Jul 22, 2022
Excerpt:
Katie Wales says that getting an allotment with her partner Scott “was the best decision we ever made”.
“You can’t beat the view from our allotment,” adds Ms Wales, 38. “It’s right next to the river. We bring our boat, and moor nearby.”
Demand for allotments across the UK soared during the pandemic. People had more time on their hands to do some gardening, and empty supermarket shelves made many of us more concerned about food supplies.
As a result, 94% of local authorities – who run the vast majority of allotment sites – said that they saw an increase in applications due to Covid-19.
Yet, allotments remain in such short supply that in many cases people are having to wait years – literally – to get their hands on one.
The released data also show that 100,000 people in total were on the waiting list for a council-owned allotment plot, of which there are 330,000 across the UK.
Ms Wales says that she and Scott “just couldn’t wait anymore” for a local authority allotment to become available.
So, instead they rented one almost immediately in the Somerset city of Bath, from a new private provider called Roots Allotments. Roots is one of a small but growing number of companies aiming to meet the pent-up demand for allotments.
